The present invention relates generally to animated talking toys and more particularly pertains to new and improved interactive toy system wherein the actuation of a movable portion of the toy and the sound thereof are controlled and coordinated by a multimedia computer connected thereto.
It is well known in the prior art to employ advanced electronic devices in designing animated sounding toys, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 50,074,821 (McKeefery et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 4,923,428 (Curran), U.S. Pat. No. 4,850,930 (Sato et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 4,767,374 (Yang), U.S. Pat. No. 4,775,352 (Curran, et al.). However, the entertainment and education benefits of the interactive toys of this type are restricted by their limited data storage capacities and lack of effective synchronization means. These drawbacks are partially caused by the use of rotary drive devices, such as DC or servo motors, which require rather complicated gearing systems for coupling with the articulated body parts of the toys, therefore, direct coordination and interaction between the sound and animation of the toy systems can not be realized. This is why the prior art interactive talking dolls do not provide realistic sound and animation effect at all. Meanwhile, since the allure of the sophisticated electronics and their miniaturization have encouraged the manufacturers to make interactive dolls with more elaboration and complexity, the costs to make such toys have risen dramatically.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,994 issued on Jun. 10, 1997 to Vincent M. K. Tong discloses a computer-controlled interactive toy system in which sound/speech synthesizing means of the toy is provided by a computer connected thereto, and the actuation of a movable boy part of the toy, such as its mouth, is provided by a DC Motor disposed therein. It is understood that in Tong""s system, the driving power and the control of the DC motor is provided by an amplifier for increasing the level of the audio signal from the computer, and by a rectifier for converting said amplified signal to a DC signal for driving the DC motor. Tong""s system does not utilize the computer to provide direct interactive control of the actuation device, nor to coordinate the sound and animation of the dolls. It is well known that lack of effective and economical synchronization means for coordinating the sound and animation has dramatically limited the entertainment value of all of the prior art interactive toy systems. Although a computer is provided in Tong""s system as a sound source for the doll, it is not employed to improve the synchronization aspect of the interactive toy system at all.
It has been known to those in the art to employ computerized image-animation methods to provide entertainment devices with synchronized audio and video sequences. However, these synchronization methods are not suitable for control of an interactive toy system in which the animation thereof is actuated by electro-mechanical devices of the type having completely different control-response pattern compared with computer-animated images shown on a computer monitor. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,409 issued on May 5, 1992 to Gasper et al. discloses a computer animation and synchronization system including a random-access user interface that enables a user to create, control and display lip-synchronized animated on-screen images on a frame-by-frame basis. In Gasper""s system, image animation and sound synchronization are controlled by a real-time random-access interface driver, which is a software system called RAVE scripting language, together with a descriptive and authoring language, called RAVEL, for defining and describing the synthesized images. Such RAVE scripting language was designed to provide realistic synchronization of lip positions of on-screen image sequences with the sound, which requires very short timing units. Therefore, such RAVE scripting language can not be used to control electro-mechanical actuation devices used in interactive toy system which require much longer response time.
Thus, it would be appreciated if appropriate apparatus and methods can be provided to synchronize the sound and animation of an animated talking toy.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an animated talking toy with the animation thereof controllable by external digital signals.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide an improved animated talking toy in which the actuation of the toy""s movable body part is provided by a two-phase electro-mechanical driving means that is operable by digital electronic signals.
To achieve the foregoing and other objects of the present invention and to remedy drawbacks of the prior art described above, there is provided an improved arrangement of computer-controlled animated talking toy system. According to one aspect of the present invention, an improved computer-controlled talking toy system includes, in combination with a multimedia computer, a toy figure which has at least one movable body part for providing animation effect. Disposed within the body of said toy figure includes a sounding device, such as a sound speaker, and actuation means for driving the articulated body part of the toy figure. Said actuation means is comprised of a multi-phase electro-mechanical driving device, such as a solenoid, and a drive-control circuitry for controlling said drive device according to digital signals transmitted from said multimedia computer connected thereto. Said sounding device is connected to and controlled by the sound subsystem of said computer.
According to another aspect of the present invention, in order to synchronize the animation of the toy figure with its audio output, said computer connected thereto is provided with synchronization system to create digital-control signals for transmitting to the drive-control circuitry of the toy figure according to the digital sound signals sent to the sounding device. For example, the computer may be programmed to create digital-control signals according to arrangement of vowel letters in the toy figure""s speech synthesized by the computer.
The foregoing is intended to be merely a summary and not to limit the scope of the specification. The features of the present invention, which are believed to be novel, are set forth with particularity in the annexed claims. The invention, however, together with further objects and advantages thereof, may best be appreciated by reference to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings.